


Zephyr

by OMGitsgreen



Category: Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn
Genre: Character Study, Christmas gift, Gen, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 06:56:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5530139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OMGitsgreen/pseuds/OMGitsgreen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“However on those breezy days, as the wind rushed and whistled in his ears, and spun out around his limbs as he soared, Jaeha could not help but think of the wind as a playmate and friend and mother. He never felt as if he was an intruder in her kingdom, instead, he felt as if the wind welcomed him happily into the sky, and helped to guide him along his journeys.” Christmas gift for onikushita on tumblr for the AkaYona Secret Santa Exchange.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Zephyr

**Author's Note:**

> MERRY CHRISTMAS, especially to my AkaYona Secret Santa recipient onikushita, who is actually one of my followers/mutual on tumblr, so I was really thrilled to have gotten her for akayonasecretsanta! She had three favorite characters, so, for this special day dedicated my first fic all about Jaeha to her! I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas! And a very merry Christmas to the rest of my wonderful friends who support my fanfiction!

Zephyr: a soft gentle breeze, derived from the name of the Western Wind in Greek Mythology

* * *

_“Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, unto the green and holly,_

_Heigh-ho, heigh-ho tumbling and falling and folly!_

_Freeze, freeze, in thou bitter kingdom of sky,_

_Freeze, Freeze, the Queen that bites as I soar high,_

_Good Lady Wind who is the kinsman to I!”_

There was an old song in the village of the Ryokuryuu that sometimes flitted in Jaeha’s head like an echoing flute, especially as he bounded through the air. Up in the sky, it was the wind’s domain, and Jaeha was just a visitor. However on those breezy days, as the wind rushed and whistled in his ears, and spun out around his limbs as he soared, Jaeha could not help but think of the wind as a playmate and friend and mother. He never felt as if he was an intruder in her kingdom, instead, he felt as if the wind welcomed him happily into the sky, and helped to guide him along his journeys.

After all, as a child who had left the village under such strange and trying circumstances, Jaeha had literally gone where the wind took him. Jaeha had followed it, because he had simply nothing else to follow and he had figured that anywhere was better than there. And as if Lady Wind herself had been privy to Jaeha’s most secret desires that had not even had the chance to blossom, she had giggled and grasped his hand, and she had led him to the things he had most craved whenever he needed them. Perhaps she was a Goddess, but not a Dragon God (the stupid, selfish Dragon Gods that shackled him with scales and chains and a fate he never wanted). But whatever she was, the wind answered his childish prayers in all their faulty glory. And maybe just maybe it was that delightful mischievous side that endeared Jaeha to her, and maybe, just maybe, that was what led him to trust her more than any human he had ever met.

One particularly vicious gust of wind sent his light body off balance and tumbling through the air and botching a landing. There in the place where he had landed Jaeha had found a cliff where sunsets unfurled vibrant and red onto an entire orchard of flowering trees that glowed and filled the air with their scent. That place seemingly belonged to no man, and Jaeha had jumped from bough to bough ladened with white petals and fruit. He set a fire beneath a tree to smoke some bees to sleep, and had stewed cherries in the floral honey and ate with lips that tingled with a sweetness that he had never experienced before. A howling storm brought Jaeha to a cave where insects glowed like stars in the darkness and helped him to uncover a dagger. A dagger with a hilt etched with a design of a twisting branch that glowed like the faraway moon in the lowlight. A puff imbued with spice and torchlight encouraged him into a town that was awash with light and festival music that saturated the air with a happyfever. That bright night had washed over him as he met a pair of lips with his own for the first time and was filled with a giddy joy.

* * *

_“Even if I were free, there’s nowhere I want to go…no one I want to meet…One day, just as was told in the King Hiryuu legend in this village, the king would come to pick me up. That feeling was gone. Ah, now I see, I am unneeded…”_

_You were wrong! Jaeha cried to the wind as he was infused with joy at a bound. You were wrong because you relied on other people to find your happiness, you relied on that damn old myth! Only I can give myself happiness, only I can write my own fate! If King Hiryuu does come, I’ll kick him square in the face! I’ll never let anyone tell me my role, I’ll never let anyone chain me down ever again—!_

* * *

And finally, a gentle breeze, suffused with salt and mist sent him bounding over the last line of trees, laughing at him certainly as Jaeha’s body smacked into the silvery waves that glinted off the midmorning sun. The wind ran over his dimpled skin like a cold childish tickle and pricking him teasingly as if it knew a secret that she was keeping from him while he was hoisted out in a net like a youngling fish too daring for his own shimmering scales. The Trickster Lady Wind was there with him giggling as the chill pinched his skin, cackling at Jaeha’s serendipitous misfortune, his happy unlucky blessings.

* * *

_“Who’re you? You came and fell from the sky. ‘I’ll do anything, so let me stay,’ you say? You’re a stupid snot-nosed brat. Do you not know how to court a woman?”_

* * *

The wind was always full of music, the wind was the current of the sky that curled foaming clouds over the edge of the horizon and sent the rain dripping over its curve. It brought warmth and cold, it brought storms and fair weather, it brought Jaeha to a harbor where he could finally find the family and peace he had never thought he wanted but had always craved. Jaeha supposed that was the nature of wise women. And Jaeha couldn’t help but think that with a smile as the spicy pipe-smoke curled and twisted in the light draft, brushing over his face and running through his hair like a kindly mother. Those women always seemed to be helping him and giving him things when he had no idea that he needed them.

“What’s with that smirk on your face?” Gigan asked him, eyeing him with a sort of fond and expectant suspicion. Jaeha felt him smile grow wider as he turned his face to look at her sitting in her chair. Jaeha rocked his hammock a bit to the rhythm of the gentle gusts that caused the ship to creak, a sort of rumbling playful giggle that sung through old wood and sail answered him.

* * *

_“I was thinking about an old song I know, Captain,” Jaeha told her quietly._

_“A song, huh?” Gigan said as she took another puff of smoke that tickled Jaeha’s nose._

_“Would you sing me to sleep, Captain?” Jaeha asked with a coy smile before Gigan scoffed, before touching his face with the warmth of the mother Jaeha had never known._

_“Don’t you push your luck, brat. Now just go to sleep before I put you to sleep.”_

* * *

The wind brought him both good and bad. It brought storms, and on the gusts of those storms bad news. The wind carried with it the coppery scent of blood, the staleness of an empty hull, brought him from nest to nest as he battled. The air glinted with daggerlight, carried the sounds of battle and pain. The wind cried with the sounds of loss, chafed and became nearly lifeless as humidity and stifling law restricted the town. The wind carried Jaeha when he fought, the breeze steadying him as he soared down to give his deadly kicks.

And then after one of the calmest nights that Jaeha could remember, where the sea lay nearly still as a looking glass to reflect the shape of the half-full moon nearly perfectly, the wind brought with it a tempest to shake both Awa and Jaeha’s life yet again. The fresh air rushed through Awa from the cliffs, the wind again released, tousling the red curls of a fated Dragon King.

And then Lady Wind took him up in her arms again, laughing with him as they spun and danced through the upper realms together in their eternal duet. The wind was his forever companion and well-known friend, as Jaeha bounded and fell in his own folly, into a new adventure and family.


End file.
